Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Venkatraman “Venki” Ramakrishnan is an Indian American and British structural biologist of Indian origin. He is the current President of the Royal Society, having held the position since November 2015. In 2009 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath, "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". Since 1999, he has worked as a group leader at the Medical Research CouncilLaboratory of Molecular Biologyon the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, UK, where he...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
CountryUnited States of America
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan quotes about
There's a perception out there that the U.K. has become unfriendly to immigrants. Even if that isn't true, the very fact that that is the perception will make people not even want to come.
We benefit tremendously from the E.U. Britain does very well in getting back E.U. money for the amount it puts in.
I realise I have inadvertently become a source of inspiration and hope for people in India simply by the fact that I grew up there, went to my local university, but could go on to do well internationally.
I remember reading a 'Scientific American' article about the use of new physical techniques - including neutron scattering - as a method for unravelling the structure of the ribosome. I was fascinated.
I started working on ribosomes when I was a post doc, in 1978, when it would have been impossible, really, to solve it. But, it was just a fundamental problem in biology.
It's for scientists to lay out the data and lay out what they think, and then it's for the public to make up its own mind. We don't live in a priesthood where some small group imposes its views on other people - that's not the way that science works, and it's not the way a democratic society should work.
My earlier exposure to physics certainly helped me in the use of biophysical techniques like crystallography, the use of computing, calculations, etc.
My mother, R. Rajalakshmi, taught at Annamalai University in Chidambaram, and during the day, I was well cared for by aunts and grandparents in the usual way of an extended Indian family.
Scientists are not movie stars or politicians who will feel insulted if they are not showered with accolades. Scientists are not interested in accolades.
The Royal Society view is completely apolitical: it will judge anything based on the evidence. One of the big strengths of the Society is that is it widely perceived as impartial and above the fray. We'd like to make sure it stays that way.
The success in the determination of the high-resolution structures of ribosomal subunits and eventually the whole ribosome was the culmination of decades of effort.
Ultimately, biological phenomena involve molecules, and understanding them involves understanding the underlying chemistry. In my opinion, this is a particularly exciting area of chemistry.
I think it's important to give young people the freedom to follow their ideas and pursue their interests.
I began studying ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow in Peter Moore's laboratory in 1978.